OK, I’m back from the mini-vacation, so let’s look at what’s been happening in Iran.
It’s already clear that two things we were told are untrue. Iran wasn’t dangerous to the US. It couldn’t retaliate beyond Bahrain, so it clearly has nothing bigger than that.
The second untruth is that citizens of Iran wanted a regime change. When Ukrainians wanted a regime change in 2013, there were millions in the streets in bitter winter cold. Iran has twice the population but there’s no evidence that citizens are mobilizing to remove the hated ayatollahs. I have seen no evidence that Iranians don’t love the ayatollahs. Whether they do or don’t shouldn’t be a concern of ours but such emphasis has been made on the point that I want to mention it.
In short, we don’t know what is really happening and what the play actually is. Tons of propaganda are being released by both pro- and anti-war sides. In both cases, the propaganda is clumsy and shows a definite lack of trying. This happens because we are so eager to believe whatever is convenient these days that we end up with the most primitive propagandists. We simply don’t merit too much of an effort.
Clarissa's Blog 
The big silver lining here is no more Iranian Shahed drones or missiles from Iran to Russia. The Russians have lost yet another ally, how many has it been so far? Syria, Venezuela, Armenia, now Iran.
Their hardware is also performing atrociously against USA and NATO military equipment. None of this bodes well for Russia.
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” more Iranian Shahed drones or missiles from Iran to Russia”
russia has been making its own shaheds for quite some time now. russia is on a war time economy ramping up weapon production of all kinds (another reason they don’t want peace because it’s the only thing keeping them going… a shift away would cause all sorts of problems.
It does show that russia is unwilling or unable to do anything for allies as if anyone didn’t know that already.
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It is definitely gratifying to observe Russians freaking out. They have been telling themselves for years that America is a paper tiger. They are now finding out that they’ve been kidding themselves.
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Americans are dying once again in the service of genocidal vermin.
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I know you’re in USA, but wanted to present my side too. Regarding this war, I am not 100% sure, but so far support it. Iran may be wasn’t dangerous to the US, but it’s certainly dangerous to us in Israel.
We saw on 7.10 what happens when we ignore threats and do not attack our enemies till they strike first. In addition to arming Hamas, Iran strengthened Hezbollah and their invasion plan was much worse than 7.10:
Rather than being ‘genocidal’ as some claim, Israeli politicians and many in IDF had been lulled into a false sense of security regarding our enemies, letting Hamas and Hezbollah arm themselves in peace for years. Both public and our officials had been happy to have quiet, till 7.10 showed its’ terrible price. If you’re wondering how Israel missed 7.10, the linked article will show exactly why.
No normal person will believe Iran had been arming Hezbollah and other proxies for decades, while destroying its own middle class since money was spent on war, just to waste money, for show.
Iran’s missile program is the probably the bigger threat in the middle term, yet its nuclear program is defined as an existential threat for Israel. I don’t think we are wrong in that. Iran’s ideology and behavior all point to one conclusion: “when somebody says he’ll kill you, believe them.”
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What I don’t get is, what is the long-term plan? Why should we assume that the next ayatollahs will be better than these previous ayatollahs?
Trump hacked himself into the Iranian TV to tell Iranians to raise up but why would they? They’ve been happily fundamentalist for longer than I’ve been alive. Why will they stop especially if this isn’t something they are doing of their own free will?
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Fight your own wars then you fucking vermin, instead of getting goyim to die for your genocidal country.
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What a disgusting antisemite you are.
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Cry more.
We’re all post-woke here. And I’m just Noticing™.
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So… who or what raised you, exactly?
Did a pack of Jewish bullies play keep-away with your bookbag when you were in middle school?
And to return to the first question, who (or what) told you that this is the way people interact with each other? In a community of knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing gas-passers, possibly this would be fine (although I imagine even some of them would say, “Hey man, that’s wrong” while dragging their knuckles, breathing through their mouths, and passing gas), but adults communicating with adults… just, no.
Here’ s something that’s always true about bigotry and racism: it’s stupid. You’ve once again risen to the level of being beneath contempt.
Also, “post-woke” and “Noticing” aren’t the flexes you seem to think they are. In fact, both are quite meaningless. And are you sure there’s really a “we” in your fetid brew of bromides and prejudices?
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I’m a conservative Christian. I don’t have to be woke to see your emotional and hateful response for what it is- bigotry.
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“Iran has twice the population but there’s no evidence that citizens are mobilizing to remove the hated ayatollahs.”
Thousands of demonstrators were killed in the streets in January.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_massacres
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Wikipedia, eh? We all trust Wikipedia, don’t we?
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Remember that famous video of “Iranian girl smoking and burning her hijab”? Completely fake. The “Iranian girl” was some dumb Canadian influencer. In Canada.
Even just today I saw people on social media hoping that she’s alive. They really believed she has something to do with Iran.
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The woman who lit her cigarette with a burning picture of Khamenei, yes. That became part of the propaganda war on social media that you mentioned.
But it is also the case that Iranians have been trying to change their system for a long time. Its distinctive feature is that while they have elections, special assemblies and councils of mullahs have a veto over the process at every step, and the “guardian” (supreme ayatollah) has the ultimate say over all affairs of state. This “guardian system” was an ideological innovation due to Khomeini himself, a kind of compromise between Islam and the Iranian movement for democracy, and it even has plenty of religious critics (who end up under house arrest or worse), on the grounds that it is an innovation, that the guardian is just another absolute ruler, and that it’s damaging the reputation of Islam among the people.
So at a minimum I would say that by now, most Iranians want to get rid of the religious veto over political life, and over daily life too. But Khomeini’s successor Khamenei was part of that same revolutionary generation who overthrew the Shah and saw it as Iran’s destiny to expel America and Israel from the Middle East. As often happens, the reality of the external enemy helped to keep him in power. I would say that most Iranians I have ever had a political conversation with, were against the system and the regime in Iran, but also against Israel and against American foreign policy (a pattern of opinion common throughout much of the Middle East).
For a long time, Iranian politics was a multi-sided game in which candidates would run for office, the mullahs would veto many of the candidates, and then the people would choose among the remainder. But since Trump came in and replaced Obama’s diplomacy with a strategy of increasing pressure, including economic sanctions, there have been increasingly violent street demonstrations every three years or so. What happened this January was by far the biggest such upheaval and it ended in the worst massacres since the end of the war with Iraq.
Of course the system and Khamenei have or had some support; one estimate I saw was 20%. But another feature of the later stages of Khamenei’s rule was concentration of power, not just around himself, but also around the military and special forces, and this (backed by Russia, China, and oil revenue) kept the country strategically on the militant path. What I’m suggesting is that Khamenei was still living the revolutionary dream of 1979 when most of the country had moved on. If the reformists had ever managed to change the system, not just at the level of the civil administration, but at the level of the guardian himself, perhaps we would never have got to the point of this war.
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Here is the blowback already. https://san.com/cc/fbi-investigating-shooting-in-austin-that-left-3-dead-including-gunman-14-injured/
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Oh God. What a terrible tragedy.
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lol amazing. Remember folks, jews and israel have nothing to do with this.
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I read this interpretation of American goals:
A very interesting description of Iran and the similarity with early / late USSR:
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Great show yesterday.
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Somebody from FSU with more knowledge could do an interesting comparison between Iran and Russia. Both are large multiethnic states, pursuing dreams of reviving imperial past even when it destroys their present and future. The roots of their violence are internal; there is nothing Ukraine or Israel can do short of a national suicide that could pacify Putin or Iranian regime.
Even their war tactics are similar. Like Russia, Iran attacks civil infrastructure. In Iranian case, oil.
“WSJ: Iran mirrors Russia’s drone warfare tactics across Gulf”
I’ve also read that:
“The Revolutionary Guard Corps is moving military equipment into schools and hospitals. This military equipment is a legitimate military target, and such actions constitute the use of civilians, patients, and students as human shields.”
Fortunately, both are great at one thing – making enemies, even out of former allies:
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Hegseth saying USA not ruling out US troops on the ground in Iran.
At this point Republicans are making Biden and Obama look like strategic geniuses.
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Yeah, I’m with you. An enormous amount of political capital is being squandered and there’s no plausible explanation of how it benefits the US.
Literally a month ago we were told that it’s all about being safe in our hemisphere. This was the military doctrine, etc. Now all of a sudden, this all gets thrown out of the window. OK, so what is the doctrine now?
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In the worst case, I hope Iranian missile program will be significantly thrown back.
Asking why would we attack Iran, if some Iranians want such a regime, is similar to asking Ukraine why attack Russian military bases, if many Russians want Putin and will have another Putin / make more rockets anyway.
Another positive development is that we may at last finish Hezbollah for good. Hezbollah launched several rockets last night, enabling us to begin a massive operation in Lebanon while pinning the responsibility for this escalation on it.
Today “The Lebanese government announced a ban on the activities of Hezbollah’s military wing.”
Finishing this Iranian project would be good for Lebanon too, not only for Israel.
Btw, “All signs point to Hezbollah in Lebanon firing drones at British military bases in Cyprus, according to Cypriot sources.”
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I thought it was significantly thrown back last summer. Now it’s become clear that this was a lie. Also, Iran never attacked the US. You can understand why people are upset. Nobody bothered to explain why American soldiers are dying for a cause that nobody among the general public understands.
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“why would we attack Iran”
I’ve yet to see a convincing argument on why the Iranian government should care so much about Israel…
It’s always seemed a kind of ritualized play-acting where both sides benefit from not actually doing much against each other…
I guess Bibi needs to stay in office to say out of prison… I keep saying a blanket pardon and a generous pension in Miami would be cheaper for all concerned….
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After making a huge deal about destroying Iran’s nuclear program in summer, now this? Of course, people are upset. How would we feel if Biden did it? I’d feel exactly the same: not happy.
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My two cents.
First this was a horrible mistake on America’s part. Trump should have told Netanyahu to pound sand, and not gotten us involved in any way shape and form.
Second. Trump pulled up something that happened nearly half a century ago as a Casus Belli for going to war with Iran. That happened before the Millennials were born, before Gen Z were born, and before Gen Alpha was born.
That he stated this was one of the reasons why is absolutely laughable to the younger generations. It makes him look just as foolish as the boomers in congress who really need to be in a retirement home. Or an insane asylum.
Third. I don’t remember if it was Trump or Netanyahu, but one of them stated on Sat? that this was in the works for weeks. Basically to the rest of the world this absolutely destroys any reputation America might have had left of negotiating in good faith.
To explain this better. By negotiating with Iran while actively planning on killing their leader, their congress, and a half a dozen other targets. It showed that America was negotiating in bad faith. That you cannot trust America to not try to kill you under a white flag. Thus no one will be able to trust America for at least a generation. Call it 30 years. As for Israel no one has trusted them to negotiate in good faith for … well its been so long I can’t actually remember when the last time was. So it wasn’t really a blow to their reputation, more of a “yup, just what we expected them to do.”
Fourth. I don’t know what the US high command was thinking. They at the very least should have warned Trump that this was a bad idea. I remember over the last twenty years endless numbers of US military intelligence press briefings where they stated that Iran has sleeper cells in our country in particular, and the west in general.
On top of that. Supposedly Iran was a major threat to Israel and the surrounding region. That they had huge amounts of weapons they could use. Yet somehow if we do a decapitation strike they will simply roll over and surrender? Because…..?
Fifth. The attacks on other countries. Again this should have been expected, by both the US and those countries. If you host a US military base, and the US goes to war. That base is a legitimate target of war. If your hotel is hosting enemy soldiers it is a legitimate target of war.
You don’t get to simply say. I can strike you at will from X base and you can’t strike back because its in an uninvolved country. That’s nonsense. More to the point its hypocritical. Did the US not launch attacks all over the middle east after 9/11 because whatever the name of the group was had bases in those other countries. I seem to recall that’s how we ended up invading at least Iraq and Afghanistan before getting quagmired there for 20-ish years.
Sixth. One of the excuses used for the casus belli was to keep Iran from getting nukes. Did Trump not brag and brag massively about turning all the nuclear sites into slag just about half a year ago? I seem to recall him stating that they had been set back decades. One of those statements was a lie.
Seventh. I heard this over the weekend, but I’m not sure how true these two statements were. First was that the Ayatollah was the Islamic equivalent of the Catholic Pope. Second that the phrase “Death to America.” Is a translation of a phrase used. More to the point a bad translation. That it was more like how you curse when your car doesn’t run. “Damn it to hell.” To be fair on the second part. Translation errors do happen all the time. Add a media who very much hates America, and wants endless war, and I can see them letting a miss-translation fly. Give it twenty years and who would even think that it was a bad translation.
Again, I just heard both this weekend, so who really knows.
There was more, but I think this made a good start. Again this was a mistake on the US’s part and if Iran holds on for about a month I think we will start to understand just how foolish getting into this actually was. After all the news reports at the start of a war are always 100% of the time extremely optimistic. Its not till the war starts dragging on before people start to realize that their government made a mistake.
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Thank you, W. You articulated it perfectly. I agree with what you say and I want to add that this egregious lying not only to the Iranians but also to the US electorate doesn’t sit well with me. I voted for Trump. When I did so, I thought I was voting against another war in the Middle East. Yet we are in another war in the Middle East. American soldiers died, and I have no idea what they died for. And I’m supposed to be happy about it? No, thanks. I want to vote for somebody who won’t start another war in that region. Is that too much to ask?
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